Serious but hardly sober

There isn’t very much I’m serious about.  I’m serious about books.  I’m serious about… um, not much else.  Just about everything needs levity or else it will suck balls.  (My 2 yo nephew says “that sucks balls, uncle Bob.”)

With books – don’t break the spine.  Don’t fold the pages.  Don’t roll it like a newspaper.  Don’t let it get wet.  Use a fricking bookmark.  Don’t turn pages while eating cheetos or wasabi or spaghetti.  Don’t stack them horizontally.  Don’t leave them in damp places.

Books are SRS BSNS.

Lately I’ve been taking pics of our antiques and hobbies to post to Flickr.  Some are going up for sale at Etsy.  Mostly, I’m looking at pictures.

…and I’m getting really ill at people!  I’m ill that I’m ill about it!  Really, things should be used.  There’s no point in having a collection of “oooh, pretty” if you’re never going to enjoy them.  Smoke your pipes, eat off your dinnerware, put stuff in your cabinetry, wipe your hands on the embroidered towels.  By all means, use it now because things exist to improve the human condition.

I’m just seeing that so many people have more money than sense.  They get these gorgeous collector’s items that have been loved and cared for.  Things that have lasted two and three lifetimes.  Then they just FUCK THEM UP!  They treat these things like status symbols and take pictures of themselves doing stupid things.  They don’t love the thing or the history of the thing or the people who loved these things.  They love the attention that owning the thing brings them.  Even more, they love having 300 of exactly the same thing and being able to brag about their things when the only thing they want is to feel superior.

So what?  Why does it matter to me?  I don’t have the money to save these things and honestly, the more of them that are destroyed, the more money my well-cared for things will be worth.  Rarity makes value and perceived value is always more relevant than actual value.

What’s important to me is that the thing be loved.  If it’s loved, then every blemish makes it more valuable – not to the outside world, but to the family who love that thing and the people who love the people who love that thing.

On my wall, amid late 1800s Austrian china, is a thick and crudely gilded dish.  One handle is missing and the broken spot has been worn down because even after it was broken, it was still used.  It was my great-grandmother’s and my grandmother tells me that Great-Grandma served the bread for dinner every single night on that dish.  She said it never failed that G-Gma would serve either rolls or bread and always on that dish – even long after it was broken.  It hangs on my wall amid things with immense value because it has immense value.  It has a family and a story and a history.

If you love something, then you take care of it.  Right?  People – please learn to take care of your things, whatever they may be.

*This post is not about items that are recycled, upcycled or repurposed.  It’s about things that when used in their intended way, but in a careless manner, are destroyed.

This whole etsy thing…

I like etsy – I do.  I like it a lot.  I’m just feeling a little discouraged.  It’s probably partly hormones and partly my natural instinct to hate selling things.  The discouragement comes with what I’ve gotten put up in the shop so far.  My handmade stuff, while diverse and awesome, normally goes to people IRL than even making it to the picture taking point.  It would probably be better to focus on becoming self-sustainable here instead of selling things for money so we can buy things at stores.

For instance, Alyssa has really thick but soft hair.  Those little tension clips do not stay put.  I found some claw clips and I’m making paper flowers out of a Dr. Seuss book that was falling apart.  They are one of a kind and just so flippin’ adorable I can’t stand it.  If I didn’t make these myself, I would end up at the mall buying a pair of barrettes for $5.  Instead, I spent $1.99  for 5 clips and the book I had laying around.  I used a little orange button for the center of the flower, gold wire to hold the button in and acrylic sealer to make it a little more durable.  I have some orange ribbon that I bought for the adoption duckies.

Also in progress is the restoration of an antique pull toy.  It’s one of the wood ones with the joints and rollers so it can either be a long caterpillar shaped toy or it can double back on itself and even roll over obstacles!  I’m making new “wheels” for it out of the same Dr. Seuss book and it is sweeeeet.  I took it out to test it with the kids and they were all tickled.  Even me and Shaun were giggling while playing with it.  It is much, much cooler than the $20 electronic piece of crap that I euthanized  a couple of weeks ago.

One thing I probably will sell is the classic car keyboard.  It’s a few days from being 100% done.  I got the decals and the “flashy bits” on it yesterday and it’s gonna kick butt.  The first clear-coat has dried and it’s waiting on it’s second coat today.  The keys need another coat of color, then decaling, then the clear coats.

I keep reading on Etsy that sellers need to find their niche.  Mine is probably going to be selling vintage items instead of mods.  Since I buy in lots, I get stuff I won’t use so it would be nice if other people could have access to those.

But if you want a mod, we’ll just be more personal about it and you can leave a bag of apples on the doorstep or something.    I’ll never get rich this way, but hey, apples!

Deep Thoughts

Hopefully I have at least 5 deep thoughts for you tonight.

1.  It’s impossible to own a human being but we use “ownership” pronouns constantly.  My kids.  My mom.  Your dad.  Our parents.  My husband.  We simply lease relationships with people until we are seperated.

2.  On the other hand, the law sees animals as property.   Not all animals are meat on the hoof… but still we “own” our companion animals.

3.  Being at the dentist at 8 am is not my idea of fun.  However, the children’s dentist is really cool and they give “candy air” to the kids.  It makes them very funny for about an hour, especially when it starts to wear off.  Alyssa says “Mommy, my feet tickle all by themselves!”

4.  6 oz birds should not be able to rule your life, but somehow, Pete and Cami certainly think they own me.  They’ll have to fight Spooks, Ernie, and Abbie for ownership.  Nola’s happy just being my friend and Calista is interested in the flavor of my chapstick. I need to remind them that they only reason they aren’t food is because they’ll never be big enough to stuff.

5.  My The kids who live in my house have an absolutely 0% chance of being normal.  Ever.  Their mom’s idea of fun is to freak up the makeup, strap on the camera, go to the aquarium and remind the freak-sized spider crabs that they taste good with butter and take pictures of the shocked faces.  It works even better when you have about 6 adorable kids with you who look absolutely innocent.  The oldest gets to hold the camera.

6.  Bonus thought!  No matter how odd my life is, I’m still shocked that the local supermarket is giving away a free watermelon with every purchase.  Things you don’t expect from your cashier:  would you like a free watermelon?  A what?  A watermelon.  Say that again.  WATERMELON.  It’s free – pick one up on your way out.

7.  Bonus thought!  Every single person I know objectifies my “ghetto bootie” and I kind of like it.  One of my friends who is from Haiti said “you know your daddy ain’t white, right?”  the very first time we met.  Not-so-secretly, I love that.  It’s like the only physical feature I have that seperates me from the crowd of average height, average weight, pink toned women.

Time to pick one of my three new books and get in the tub.  I should be able to sleep in tomorrow, thankyouJesus!  I get to choose from Laurell K. Hamilton, Michael Palmer, and Catherine Coulter’s TailSpin.  The first two are guaranteed to rock.  The last one is not so sure… I’m about to reevaluate my love of Ms. Coulter.  The last few have been just exploiting her bestseller name.  I’ll keep TABLP updated on THAT relationship.

Personal Missions

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs the last few days, trying to take my mind off the increasing panic related to the kids’ being adopted.  I realized there’s a common thread and it’s kind of depressing.  I think I should pop a B vitamin before I go much further.

In many of the blogs I’ve read – people are pissed off about something.  Something that makes them hot enough to write about it.  Some are deep, but most are very shallow things.  It’s like me and books – no one is really going to be changed by my personal vendetta against folks who abuse and toss away books.  It’s very shallow.

But it gives me something to focus on and to take my mind off of what is really bothering me.  It’s easier to not think about the really scary crap if I’m working on thinking about cataloguing or removing stickers from books I’ve bought at yardsales or Goodwill.  I don’t stop to think about how much my life bothers me if I’m writing about how water damage hurts books.

The truth is that I’m not big enough to fix the problems that really matter to me and I’m not sure anyone can.  I am big enough to find, restore, and then trade paperbacks online.  I am big enough and strong enough to “vote with dollars” in places that I respect.

<why does wordpress keep deleting half of my post?>

I’m not sure that focusing on shallow things is really all that bad.  If it keeps us up and moving, is it really that bad?  So – rock on, hobbyists!  Rock on, lobbyists!  Let’s make a difference in things that don’t really matter.  But what do we do then?

(most of my friends just cheer on whatever ball team their kid is on.  I don’t know if I can go to that level of avoidance…)